Unpredictability and fighting spirit
make the salmon a prizedfreshwater
trophy earnestlyfished for by young
and old (right)near Big Fallsin
Newfoundland.
Across the sea, tension shatters into
smiles when apprenticegillie
ChristopherHanson, delayed two hours
by a snowstorm, strides into a River
Tweed fishing "hut" with a handsome
catch (bottom right). A 1935
photograph(bottom left) on the hut wall
recallswhen Lady JoanJoicey hooked
26 salmon in a day. Such plenitude may
never be seen again,however, if world
diplomacyfails to protect this
internationalresource.
provided by sport fishermen, although the
number of rods permitted on each river is
limited and monitored to preserve stocks.
"We would be honored if you would fish
for our hatchery,"
Baldur Kristjansson
translated for his father, Kristjan Bene
diktsson. Kristjan, a farmer in the valley
of the Laxa, was at once robust and gentle.
His smile, like his offer, was generous.
"Tell your father it is I who am honored,"
I said. There was new snow on the moun
taintops, and Stifla, the pool I was to fish,
was full of salmon. Fishing Icelandic rivers
is very expensive, under a complex letting
system, and to be invited as a guest isn't to
be taken lightly.
Th6rdur Petursson, a gillie nicknamed
"Doddi," had dressed a fly in my name. He
said the salmon I caught were to be kept
alive in a cache anchored to the riverbank
until October, when they would be taken to
one of fifteen hatcheries throughout the
country that supplement stocks of smolts for
Iceland's 60 salmon rivers.
The salmon I hooked, as Kristjan
cheered, were powerful, mostly seasoned
males with big, twisted jaws. A hen was a
prize, because she would provide many eggs
for the hatcheries. I played the fish deliber
ately to preserve their strength, and the gillie
treated each as if the fate of all the world's
salmon rivers were linked to its survival. He
sped them all to the cache, and not until each
was swimming round the pen did he take
time to thump my back and proclaim, "Very
good fisherman, you, Art Lee."
Q
614